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An influential group of Black elected officials has called for a meeting with Joe Biden to discuss police reform, as calls for changes to American policing intensify after officers’ deadly beating of Tyre Nichols.
The chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, Steven Horsford, said the group of 60 members of Congress had asked to meet with the president this week to “push for negotiations on much-needed national reforms to our justice system – specifically, the actions and conduct of our law enforcement”.
The appeal to Biden, who has called for Congress to pass police reforms, came as protests prompted by Nichols’s killing continued in Memphis over the weekend.
Nichols, a Black man, died on 10 January, three days after Memphis police officers beat him by a traffic stop. Nichols’s parents, who have been invited to attend Biden’s State of the Union speech on 7 February, said the 29-year-old was driving home after photographing the sunset.
Video footage released by Memphis officials last week showed officers kicking and punching and Nichols and hitting him with a police baton.
Five Memphis officers were fired after the attack and have since been charged with second-degree murder, aggravated assault, aggravated kidnapping, official misconduct and official oppression.
“No one in our nation should fear interacting with the police officers who serve our diverse communities, large and small,” Horsford, a Democratic congressman from Nevada, said. “We all want to be safe.
“Many Black and brown people, however, and many young people in general, are justifiably afraid to interact with law enforcement officials.”
Horsford continued: “We are calling on our colleagues in the House and Senate to jumpstart negotiations now and work with us to address the public health epidemic of police violence that disproportionately affects many of our communities.
